Looking at 2020

Hello everyone who might find this post. We are actually, factually, reviving the 2hearts1horizon website! Woot woot! Things have finally gotten real, as Kate is seeing her graduation coming up and is looking forward to a gap year before moving into her graduate program. Me? I’ve just been planning a big ol’ road trip for us as far back as I can remember.

And now, [drum roll] we are genuinely planning our big-ass-adventure. Budgeting shows us able to spend about five months on the road if we sell everything of value, put the rest into storage, and do a few odd jobs along the way to bring in money. The original plan was to hit all 49 states plus Canada, but we don’t want to hurry through any part of our adventure. It’s about the trip, not the destination(s). No way will we pass up a chance to hang out with new friends and explore their corner of the world.

So instead we are planning a basic loop, leaving from Utah in early August, heading north before turning east trough Minnesota, then through Michigan and into Ontario. We’ll hit Canada all the way to Maine before heading down the east coast to the Florida Keys. From there we’ll run along the gulf and into Texas, then figure out by the seat of our pants where we want to go.

We’d like to see Colorado but by then we expect it will be pretty cold. Explore Texas? Go south into Mexico? Wander the high plains of New Mexico? Being California natives, neither of us is worried about spending time in Arizona, Nevada, or Cali. Still, we should have a shot at most of the US, missing some of the central states yes, but I have family in Kentucky and Kate has family in Kansas; both are great excuses for a separate trip.

Then we’ll just be missing the Pacific Northwest, Idaho, and Montana: a great excuse for a trip during Spring Break. We are having weekly meetings and making a timeline. We have a savings account we are filling as much as possible, and we are looking for the right vehicles and hopefully a sponsor or two.

Purpose Makes Memories

One thing we want to accomplish on this trip is to raise some awareness: mainly for ourselves but also in others. The issue isn’t war in Tibet or stamping out childhood hunger, but a broader concept and something that is hard to talk about: loneliness.

Kate and I have talked about how loneliness isn’t like clinical depression… it isn’t in a manual and there are no pills to correct it. You can experience loneliness no matter how many friends or peers you interact with. It can cripple your ability to function and lead to a spiral of depression. Loneliness can kill.

People don’t like to talk about their loneliness either, despite the fact that we’ve all felt it to some degree and can understand the feeling easily. Yet we think it’s somehow unique to us, or that it’s our fault. During long trips the concept of loneliness can manifest in unique ways. We make connections but they are fleeting because we’re on the move. We stay connected via social media but by now I think we’re all aware that those types of connections leave us wanting: they aren’t real enough.

We want to highlight and talk about loneliness on the way, and to reach out to people who might be desperately lonely as we travel on our way. Ideas are forming in our meetings and hopefully a more concrete plan will develop by the time we leave, because loneliness leads to depression and depression leads to suicide. That is a terrible way to find out a loved one was more disconnected than we thought.

But the trip will also be about adventure of course. Seeing new places and connecting with nature will be the top priority, but I’ll also have a chance to reconnect with friends of mine who have dispersed over the years. I can sell articles from the road and Kate will be selling jewelry as we go too, and this will help make money and give us an outlet for our creative sides.

Along with that we will get to share plenty of photos, and they are worth a thousand words if you believe the axiom. And with that, I’d like to leave you all with some of our favorite photos from 2019. We are looking forward to our trip, but it’s nice to look back as well in order to see how far we’ve come.

Look for future posts here and subscribe so you can get a direct link to any new posts. It’s nice to have a treat in your inbox on Monday morning that isn’t spam or work related.

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2hearts1horizon

This profile is for either Johnny or Kate to update and modify content for 2hearts1horizon.com. We speak in the 1st person for either of us or in the 3rd person about the project itself.
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